The beginning of the most expensive municipal election in Chicago history... More than 50 mailings to one home in the 45th Ward during build up to the February 24 voting as Rahm and Rahm's surrogates try every slander to defeat a Progressive Caucus leader

George N. Schmidt - February 23, 2015

There were days when our mailbox received four mailings on the upcoming municipal election. By February 23, after both my wife and I had voted early, our home had received 51 pieces of mail about the upcoming election. The mailings included the attack pieces against our incumbent alderman, John Arena, mailings promoting Arena's two main opponents, and a large number of mailings about the upcoming mayoral race. The cost of this one race will probably never be known, but the waste of money on many of the mailings has to be considered.

Despite the expensive campaign against Alderman John Arena by the forces allied with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, on the even of the February 24 voting, Arena's campaign had a major advantage over its adversaries. There will probably never be a complete accounting for all the stuff that was mailed out during what will be the most expensive municipal election in Chicago history.

We stopped counting the number of polls we were receiving by phone during the weeks between New Year's Day and February 24, although we should have. Many of those were push polls, one of which I remember always had "Rahm Emanuel" and "John Garrido" as the answer most desired. But because of the way in which we handle our phones, our home never catalogued the phone traffic building up to the election.

The Reader's Ben Joravsky put it well in a February 19 article "Education group allied with Rahm is really good at campaign propaganda..."

JAROVSKY'S READER ARTICLE

Education group allied with Rahm is really good at campaign propaganda Closing mental health clinics was the mayor's idea—but that doesn't stop his supporters from blaming an independent alderman.

By Ben Joravsky @joravben

John Arena, alderman of the 45th Ward, is a mayoral critic who's been targeted by Democrats for Education Reform.

John Arena, alderman of the 45th Ward, is a mayoral critic who's been targeted by Democrats for Education Reform.

BRIAN JACKSON/ SUN-TIMES

As the campaigns make their final appeals, I've been trying to decide which of Mayor Emanuel's commercials and mailings is the most misleading piece of propaganda of the city election season.

But after weighing the evidence, I have to concede that the mayor is not even in the running for this august honor.

Instead, let's give a shout-out to Democrats for Education Reform, aka DFER, a pro-charter schools, anti-teachers' union outfit that might as well be considered part of the mayor's campaign. It's been waving the flag on his behalf since the 2012 teachers' strike.

The group's first misleading mailer this year was a flyer attacking Alderman Toni Foulkes, who's running in the 16th Ward. Foulkes currently represents the 15th Ward, but she's on the ballot in the 16th after Emanuel and his allies mapped her out of her old ward largely because she's a member of the progressive caucus.

The caucus is that band of eight aldermen—including Scott Waguespack (32nd) and John Arena (45th)—who occasionally vote against some of the mayor's more repellent legislation. But eight aldermen are not enough to block mayoral initiatives, no matter how unsavory they may be.

You might think that our mayor would be a little more tolerant of aldermanic dissent, since he controls a commanding majority in the council. But that's not our mayor.

Earlier this month DFER mailed a flyer that praised JoAnn Thompson—the incumbent 16th Ward alderman who recently died—while bashing Foulkes: "When JoAnn Thompson voted to bring more early childhood education to Englewood that doesn't cost taxpayers anything, Toni Foulkes voted no. . . . Foulkes stood with the special interests that would have left thousands of Chicago children without the education they deserve."

OK, one more time: nothing is free, especially good preschool programs. In this case, the mayor chose to pay for the expansion of an existing pre-K program for poor children by borrowing money instead of taking it right from the school budget.

As a result taxpayers will be on the hook for as much as $4 million a year in interest to some of the country's wealthiest bankers. So it's obviously inaccurate to say that the program "doesn't cost taxpayers anything."

One of the half dozen anti-Arena mailings that came from DFER (Democrats for Education Reform) during the run up to the February 24, 2015 municipal election in Chicago.As bad as that is, it's probably not even the worst part of the mayor's preschool deal. In order to get their money, the bankers have to prove that the students in their pre-K program outscore kids who are not included. In other words, for 2,600 or so poor kids to get preschool, the city must guarantee that around the same number of kids don't get it.

Otherwise the bankers don't get their money.

This is the ordinance that Foulkes and four other members of the progressive caucus voted against in the futile hopes of pressuring the mayor into spending school money on kids, not bankers.

That'll teach Foulkes—and any other alderman who's paying attention—to stand up to the mayor.

But that mailer isn't even DFER's finest piece of propaganda this election cycle. Even more impressive was its hit piece attacking Alderman Arena.

"Arena voted to close half of Chicago's mental health clinics, leaving our most vulnerable residents without care," the 45th Ward flyer says. "Thanks to John Arena, patients now have longer waits, unfamiliar doctors and are at risk of slipping through the cracks, ending up on the streets—or worse."

Just so you know—and I think you already do—it was the mayor, not Alderman Arena, who moved to shutter those clinics.

Emanuel included the closures in his first budget, which the aldermen passed unanimously—meaning that everyone voted for it. That included progressives like Foulkes and Arena as well as Emanuel allies such as John Pope (Tenth), Howard Brookins Jr. (21st), Emma Mitts (37th), and of course Patrick O'Connor (40th), the mayor's floor leader. DFER has endorsed all of these loyalists.

Some progressives also voted for that budget because the mayor was then working with his allies to redraw the city's ward maps. They knew he could draw them out of their old wards with a swipe of the pen. As he ended up doing with Foulkes anyway.

The clinic closings ignited months of protests, which the mayor's police department infiltrated with undercover cops. So there was money to spy on the mental health activists but no money for the mental health patients.

It's one more reason to vote for anyone but Mayor Rahm in this round.

The bottom line is that Arena is way low on the list of people to blame for the travesty with the mental health clinics. If DFER really wanted to champion the cause of poor mental health patients, it would send out a flyer ripping the mayor. After all, it was his idea to close those clinics.

In fact, I put this idea to Owen Kilmer, DFER's spokesman. I believe his response was along the lines of "Kiss my . . . "

Let's just say my interview with Kilmer, an old pal, quickly descended into a shouting match. Don't you just hate when that happens?

He said DFER has dropped its campaign against Foulkes since Thompson's death. But Arena remains in its sights.

"Our focus is to unseat Arena, who has to be one of the most anti-education reform alderman in the City Council," Kilmer said. "We'll use every issue at our disposal."

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this point. I don't think DFER is going after Arena because he's any "worse" than any other progressive alderman on charter schools or teacher accountability or whatever rocks your boat. Most progressive aldermen see eye to eye on these things.

I say DFER is targeting Arena because it thinks he can be ousted—just as it thought Foulkes was vulnerable when Thompson was still alive.

By beating Arena the organization would send a message to other aldermen who might dare to oppose the mayor on issues such as charter schools.

Comments:

Innaccurate information

Yesterday I received a call from a "resident" of ward 1 saying some gossip about one of the candidates opposing the current alderman.

I refer to the message as gossip because it was brought to my attention two days before the election and I have no way to check it out. Instead of influencing my vote, it just made me angry.

February 23, 2015 at 11:07 AM

By: George N. Schmidt

Documenting last minute dirty tricks

For the last 48 hours of this nasty election campaign, I'm keeping a notebook and pen beside the phone. Before I answer the phone, I write down the number calling me. If someone says "community resident" or "friend," I ask the person for their name. So far, that's resulted in a click. I called back one of the numbers that had called and it was supposedly OUT OF SERVICE. But it had just called us (according to our Caller ID). I'm hoping people will share these experiences by documenting them as Jean has, and we will report them at Substance until the votes are all counted. This is a Chicago election, and we are learning a lot by having thousands of people we know actively involved in it.

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